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[Mason]

This has happened to me TWICE in this PC's one year history. It happens about every 6 months or so, which is ridiculous, but I digress.

I go to boot up my computer this morning and it says for whatever reason, WIndows didn't shut down right and I have to choose start as normal, safe mode, etc etc etc. Well if I try any of them, right after the Win XP loading screen comes up and the bar fills up once, a blue screen with some text on it flashes for a very brief moment and the PC restarts. I can't start up in any of the modes.

I don't remember how to use the DOS-looking repair screen and when I put in the WinXP disc and chose to install Windows again (hoping it would just fix any corrupted files or whatever and leave my data alone), it says I have to reformat because the disc is damaged or something.

So now I'm on Knoppix, furiously burning all my data to blank DVDs so I can reinstall Windows. Before I get to that point, is there ANYTHING I can do to recover Windows before reformatting this drive? There is so much information to save (250 gb HDD, half full) that I really don't want to have to do that.

Thank you so much in advance to anyone who can help.

 

[EB Guy]

get a new power supply

 

[bishoptl]

It sounds like you have the same problem I experienced a short time ago. A piece of hardware is crapping out, and YOU have to figure out what it is.

I replaced my power supply with a more robust one - no dice.
I had my motherboard checked out - it was fine.

Turns out I had a faulty memory stick. Yanked that puppy out and everything was A-OK. So I'd check out all your HW bits before reformatting your drive unnecessarily.

 

[Hooker]

Get a cheap, CHEAP second hand HDD, something like 20GB or even smaller - install windows on that one.




Download Partition Magic, and make a new windows-only partition on the 250GB HDD (I reckon you have some space left on there).

You keep your data without creating DVD's and such

 

[Mason]

It sounds like you have the same problem I experienced a short time ago. A piece of hardware is crapping out, and YOU have to figure out what it is.

I replaced my power supply with a more robust one - no dice.
I had my motherboard checked out - it was fine.

Turns out I had a faulty memory stick. Yanked that puppy out and everything was A-OK. So I'd check out all your HW bits before reformatting your drive unnecessarily.

I'm starting to think that's exactly what it is. Even when I loaded Knoppix, it took about 3 times to get it loaded and then it was going really slow and parts didn't even load. I thought it might have something to do with the memory.

I tried following the steps on http://www.digitalwebcast.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=8658-1&afterinter=true but it won't even let me do the first part where it says to "md tmp". I get a message saying the path or file specified is not valid or an error occured during directory enumeration.

On top of that, in Knoppix, I see nothing on my C: or D: drives. Nothing. Why can't I see what's there? Is it all gone or what?

 

[EB Guy]

I'm starting to think that's exactly what it is. Even when I loaded Knoppix, it took about 3 times to get it loaded and then it was going really slow and parts didn't even load. I thought it might have something to do with the memory.

I tried following the steps on http://www.digitalwebcast.com/articles/viewarticle.jsp?id=8658-1&afterinter=true but it won't even let me do the first part where it says to "md tmp". I get a message saying the path or file specified is not valid or an error occured during directory enumeration.

On top of that, in Knoppix, I see nothing on my C: or D: drives. Nothing. Why can't I see what's there? Is it all gone or what?

because you need a new power supply, your hard drives are not showing up because they aren't getting power, that's why you find your computer rebooted by itself.